Case Study Researchers Comorbidities with IC Disease

It has been believed that Interstitial Cystitis is a subset of Fibromyalgia and a recent controlled case study wanted to find if more than one illness was prevalent in those with Interstitial Cystitis.

The Journal of Urology reported last month that researchers used physician assigned diagnoses in an electronic medical record to assess comorbidities associated with IC Disease.

A computer search of the administrative database at Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, Oregon was performed for May 1, 1998 to April 30, 2003. All women with a medical record diagnosis of interstitial cystitis (ICD-9 code 595.1) were identified. These cases were then matched with 3 controls each based on age and duration in the health plan. The medical diagnoses (using ICD-9 codes restricted to 3 digits) assigned to these 2 groups were compared using the OR.

There were a total of 239 cases and 717 matched controls that were analyzed. There were 23 diagnoses that were significantly more common in cases than in controls.

Further studies are needed to explore the possible biological explanations for these associations. Interstitial cystitis was also associated with a history of child abuse, although 96% of patients with IC did not have this diagnosis.